Bank Holiday Friday and a fantastic start to the soaring season. Booming thermals to 4,000ft+ and over 30 hours of flying time with an average flight time of 1:20 minutes. And with the whole fleet airborne the tuggie had a lot of waiting to do on the ground. Whatever the attraction was over to the East, it soon found R35, R66 and KES passing each other at one stage to go and take a look.

Two members took full advantage of the conditions to get on the ladder. Sophie completed her 50km Silver Distance. Many congratulations and well done indeed Sophie. But more of Sophie’s trip later.

Meanwhile Andy had taken the K18 R43 for a local soaring trip only to return late in the day after completion of his 5 hour Silver Duration. Great effort Andy.

Good new for one of our Junior members. Darce has received a Caroline Trust award to help with flying costs towards her goal of going solo and beyond. Established under the banner “Caroline Trust” by friends and gliding colleagues in memory of Caroline, a keen glider pilot, the Trust aims to encourage young people, especially women, and people with disabilities to participate in the sport of gliding.

It's the Easter break for our MEF students but Alisdair and Glenn stayed behind to take advantage of the conditions today. They both managed 4 trips each in the day and are making fantastic progress with Glenn taking his first trip in a glider from the world of microlights.

The surprise of the day was to get a call in the circuit from 494. True to form Nigel “Land-Out” Lassiter with fellow Mindy Mike landed out, forgetting that they had taken off from the Long Mynd. We took their money and saw them on their way!

The “Hangar Queen” FCV was rigged today and with Nick L at the controls, took its first leisurely wander of the year into the void. At some stage Nick took a look at Cosford where he was joined by Alun and Ian in R35. Alun had decided to take a break for the day from his microlight flying which he normally flies at Cosford. They both reported that Cosford was eerily quiet, sadly a far cry from former frenetic Easter BH Fridays we recall when the Tutors, the Powered Flying Club and the gliding club all shared the circuit.

Finally, we had been watching Sophie’s progress and a cheer went up when she hit the 50km mark over Uttoxeter and then turned for home; we could relax. It was, therefore, with some surprise that we got a phone call from Sophie to say that she had landed out at Ternhill. KE with Ian and Will was quickly dispatched to do an aerotow retrieve to bring R66 home – a 30 min round trip!